


Wild Love

by fullmetalgrigori (shatteringdaybreak), lucyrne (theungenue)



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Animal Transformation, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteringdaybreak/pseuds/fullmetalgrigori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By day, he prowls the Earth in a wolf's body; by night, she glides on soft owl wings. Only in the brief moments of twilight at dawn and sunset do they get to steal a few moments together as people. Soul and Maka wonder if it will ever be possible to master their shapeshifts, to have the time they crave together in their true human forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaoticlivi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticlivi/gifts).



> This was written by lucyrne and fullmetalgrigori to accompany chaoticlivi's art for Soul Eater Reverse Resbang 2015! Since we co-wrote this piece, we split up the story by perspective.
> 
> Maka's POV is written by FMG.
> 
> Soul's POV is written by Lucy.
> 
> Please enjoy!

It was an unpleasant night, full of cracking lightning and raging thunder, a night made for shuttered windows and a roaring fire. The Albarn House could offer both of these, so many of the local townspeople crowded into the dining room to enjoy the warmth of the fire, the company of friends, and the savory taste of the inn’s specialty stew. As Maka Albarn surveyed the packed interior, she nodded in satisfaction and thanked whoever had created storms such as the one raging outside.

The musician tuning his lyre in front of the massive fireplace only added to her luck. Traveling musicians and bards were more than welcome in Maka’s inn, for entertainment not only drew in more customers, but also more coin. She was happy to provide food and lodging to any musician willing to play, as it meant extra nightly earnings for her and generous tips for him. It was a beneficial scenario for all those involved… though regarding this musician in particular, that might not have been entirely true.

His music was not exactly traditional in the strictest sense. That wasn’t to say that Maka didn’t enjoy it -- quite the opposite, in fact. Soul Evans, the musician in question, was talented on the lyre, and his singing was not bad at all. But where most bards chose upbeat, lively ballads, Soul preferred tales of a much more tragic nature. His music was dark and wildly chaotic, and his ballads more often than not told tales of star-crossed lovers and painful endings.

Maka, for the life of her, could not determine why he chose the stories he did, but whenever she watched him play she saw a hint of something dark in his eyes. Perhaps it was a personal choice -- she would certainly not begrudge him of it if it was. Still, she found it curious. He could not be making much by the way of tips given the reception his performances garnered, and yet he’d chosen to stay at her inn far longer than the two weeks he’d booked when he had arrived. Maka had been puzzling over it, but could not figure out the reason behind his extended stay.

The questions in her mind faded as the first haunting notes drifted into the air, silencing the chatter in the dining room as the patrons turned their attention toward Soul. The thunder and the pattering of the rain provided an eerie harmony, and it was with bated breath that Maka listened to his latest dark ballad.

In keeping with his style, he sang of a pair of naive young lovers, devoted to each other and convinced that nothing in the world could tear them apart. However, the young maiden’s father found himself in a horrible debt, and an evil lord convinced him that the only way to repay it was with his daughter’s hand in marriage. Distraught, the maiden told her lover and they planned to escape to the west, where they might be free of her father’s will and live together happily. But that night, as the maiden waited for her lover, he never came. The evil lord had discovered their plan and slaughtered the lover while he slept, leaving the maiden to wait alone. The next morning, he came to gloat, to show the maiden that she was entirely under his control. However, upon hearing the news of her beloved’s demise, the maiden took a knife from her nightstand, and in a final act of defiance, slid the blade into her heart so that she might be reunited with her dead lover for eternity.

The dining room remained silent as the song faded, the crashing thunder punctuating the final note. There came a smattering of applause amidst the murmuring, then the sparse clinking of coins into Soul’s lyre case. As Maka suspected, it was not nearly as much as he would have earned had he chosen a different ballad.

“His music is strange, don’t you think?” Tsubaki, her friend and barkeeper, leaned over the bar to scrutinize the odd-looking musician.

“Perhaps. But I like it well enough.”

She could practically hear Tsubaki’s raised eyebrow. But her friend only said, “His tray’s ready.”

“Thank you.”

Soul had claimed the corner table after collecting his tips, as he usually did. It was amusing to watch him try and sink into the shadows, considering how much light the fire cast into the room. She didn’t know the musician very well, aside from a few short conversations to determine living arrangements, but she was starting to learn that Soul was not nearly as intimidating as he tried to appear.

“A fine performance, as usual,” she said as she set down the tray. “Though I’m afraid this crowd prefers love ballads to the tragedies.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I see you’ve decided not to listen to me.”

“An artist should never compromise his style for profit.”

“Silly me. And here I thought you were just being stubborn.”

Soul glared at her, his deep red eyes glittering in the firelight. But then his lips twitched, betraying him. “Did you only come over here to insult me?”

“Not only. I brought you supper.” She poked the tray forward, bringing his attention to the steaming bowl of stew and chunk of fresh bread.

He lit up and dug into his meal with gusto, seemingly oblivious to her continued presence. Maka rolled her eyes. However talented Soul was with a lyre, his table manners left a lot to be desired.

She considered leaving him to his meal, but a question from earlier popped into her mind. Soul eyed her warily as she took a seat across from him, swallowing with a noisy gulp. “Can I help you…?”

“You said you only planned to stay in the area for two weeks, and yet I count four on the calendar. I was wondering what it is that’s keeping you here. We’re no different from any other town.”

Soul shrugged casually, but she noticed that he looked almost alarmed. Then he relaxed and took another bite of stew. “You would be surprised,” he muttered around the mouthful, and she wondered if the words had been meant for her. After swallowing he said, “Sometimes I get tired of moving around so frequently. I decided it was time for a little change.”

“I can’t say I’m disappointed. Despite your odd taste in ballads, your presence does wonders for my profits.”

“Odd? That’s a nice thing to say to the person responsible for most of your revenue.”

“Only that our patrons find it odd. I actually quite like your music.” She couldn’t quite tell if the faint pink along his cheeks was due to the fire or not. It was getting rather warm, now that she thought about it. “But don’t flatter yourself, Soul. My inn was successful some time before you wandered in.”

He squinted at her. “I hope you don’t treat all your employees this way.”

Maka opened her mouth to retort when a ringing crash echoed throughout the room. One look, and: “Blake! If you’re trying to impress Tsubaki again, so help me…!” She pushed herself off the bench and stormed over to where a man with wildly tousled hair and a star tattoo was leaping off one of the tables and sprinting for the door, shouting all the while. Raucous laughter followed his exit as some hurried towards the threshold to see what was sure to be an entertaining showdown.

Soul sighed as he watched Maka go, idly twirling his spoon in the bowl. “Nice talking to you,” he said glumly, and kicked himself once again that he couldn’t make himself leave this particular inn… and its proprietor.

As he resumed his meal, he failed to notice the glowing yellow eyes that watched him from underneath a nearby table.

“Oh, Soul,” a giggling, feminine voice said. “Don’t you worry. Blair has the perfect idea.”

 

* * *

 

The next day Maka was out by the laundry lines, retrieving the sheets she had set out to dry that morning. With every gust the wind threatened to carry off her linens deep into the forest, but Maka was quick and sure as she plucked the clothespins off one by one. Her hands moved automatically, her mind far away from the task at hand. There were still several chores to be done before supper, and then more still after that to prepare for the next day. Maka didn’t mind, though -- she was no stranger to hard work, and there was something very satisfying about collapsing into bed at the end of the day knowing you had completed everything set before you.

Despite the work still facing her, Maka took a moment to pause and admire the sun setting behind the forest. It was lovely, how the purpled rays lined the edges of the trees in smudged shadow. That strange hour of twilight approached, where the air glowed a stale yellow and looked just a little brighter before the sun finally slipped below the horizon. Maka had always thought it was the hour of possibility, of last chances before the night crept in.

Her attention switched back to the laundry line as the wind gusted again, taking hold of the last sheet and pulling it free from the pins holding it down. Maka gasped and dropped the basket, reaching out to catch the sheet before it blew away. Her fingertips brushed the edge and it was gone, sucked into the depths of the darkening forest.

Without thought, Maka chased after it, hiking up her skirts and plunging into the woods. Branches scratched at her limbs and slapped at her face, but she paid them no mind as she darted around bushes and clambered over tree roots. She couldn’t say why exactly it was so important that she retrieve the bedsheet, only that some voice inside her head drove her forward, deeper and deeper into the woods.

Trees blurred in the corner of her vision as she ran. Her muscles burned and her lungs ached but still she continued. It was only when she burst into a large clearing that she stopped, chest heaving from exertion. When she turned to look back at the way she had come, the path that had seemed so straight before had disappeared, leaving only shadowed forest behind her. With a growing sense of dread she realized that the sheet she had been chasing was gone.

Maka swallowed hard and tried to calm her racing heart. She’d been in this forest many times before, but still she could not explain the prickling feeling on the back of her neck. Circling around slowly, she tried to listen for any sounds to guide her home, but all she could hear was…

Nothing. Not the kind of nothing that meant a quiet night, but the kind that meant something very strange and wrong was afoot. The air was so still that Maka wondered if the world had frozen around her, and she found herself unconsciously holding her breath to avoid disturbing whatever she thought -- no, she knew -- was out there.

A soft sound shattered the silence like breaking glass. It took Maka longer than it should have to identify, but once she did, her blood ran ice cold. Someone was nearby, and that someone was giggling.

“Who’s there?” she cried out, perhaps foolishly. She took a step forward, even though she could not determine where the voice was coming from. Before she could take another, her knees wobbled and gave out underneath her, sending her collapsing to the muddy ground below.

Maka tried to stand, but her muscles were no stronger than jelly. At first, she thought the burn in her legs was from exertion, but the sensation slowly grew into something she had never felt before. The only thing she could think of to describe it was that it felt wrong and yet also not. It was a fire that did not consume her.

It was changing her.

A warm buzz settled over her skin, washing away the pain and leaving only a scratchy discomfort, as though she were wearing a wool blanket on a midsummer’s night. Her skin shimmered in the dying light, and Maka watched in horror and awe as it began to ripple and shift. Her stomach clenched and rolled unpleasantly, yet she couldn’t look away.

The tendons in the backs of her hands stood pronounced, her muscles locking up as her body shook with tremors. She curled inwards, forehead pressed into the ground as the breath was ripped from her body. Whatever changes she was undergoing, they were taking an enormous toll on her.

Time passed in an eternity and all at once. Maka slowly came back to herself as she took in each sense one at a time. The cool dirt against her skin, the floral scent of the forest air, the gentle rustle of the wind through the trees… and the foreign strangeness of her own body.

She sat up too fast and winced as her limbs protested. One of the hems in the bodice of her dress protested loudly, then gave way. It was followed quickly by its neighbors, the popping of each stitch abnormally loud in the clearing. Maka desperately clutched at the fabric and held it to her chest, her cheeks burning red despite her solitude.

“What is going on?” she whispered to herself. The forest around her, unsurprisingly, did not choose to answer.

After a few deep breaths, Maka shook her head to clear it and straightened up. Whatever was going on, she couldn’t fix it if she didn’t know the entire situation. So it was time to clamp down on the panic and fear running rampant in her brain, and to calmly and rationally take stock of just what she’d wandered into.

She quickly determined that she was not missing anything vital, nor was she greatly injured. There was that, at least. A residual ache remained behind, and her muscles felt fatigued, but other than that there was no pain.

Whatever had occurred, perhaps it was over. Maka swallowed hard, remembering that she still didn’t know what it was. Well. No better time.

She looked down at the hand that was braced against the ground, and for a terrifying second she wondered if she’d been wrong, and she had lost a finger during her strange fit. But no, all five fingers were there, only… they were covered in soft down, like one would find on a baby bird.

Maka’s pulse thundered in her ears as she scanned the rest of her arm. Her sleeve was in tatters, split right along the seam. The smooth skin that should have been beneath it was instead replaced with rows of long, tawny feathers.

As much as she wanted to believe it, she knew it wasn’t a dream. The damp earth beneath her hand felt much too real for that. And as foreign as the feathers were, they also felt familiar in some way. They bristled under her direction, though how, she couldn’t say. A quick look at her other arm confirmed the same thing, and though Maka was desperately hoping it would be the only change, she knew deep in her gut that it was not.

She lifted one shaking hand to her temple, and was unsurprised to feel more soft down along her hairline. There were even feathers scattered throughout her hair. Her legs were the only places that seemed feather-free, but as she shifted to look at them, she quickly realized that they had not escaped the transformation.

Her boots had split along the soles, falling away to reveal scaly skin and talons. They flexed and dug into the soft dirt, easily piercing three holes in the ground. They were an owl’s legs, and an owl’s feathers -- yet for some reason, her change had stopped halfway.

“Why?” she murmured, running a finger along one of the feathers. “What is happening?” Would she be stuck like this for the rest of her life? Was there a way to fix it? There had to be, she decided, simply because she wouldn’t accept any other answer. There was a way to fix the change, and Maka was going to find it.

Before she could take any action, however, a twig snapped in the woods in front of her. Maka stiffened and clenched her dress tighter to her. Perhaps it had only been a small animal? But no, there was another snap, and the shuffling of branches -- someone was definitely in the forest, and they were heading towards her.

Maka snatched up a small tree branch lying nearby, holding it out in front of her steadily. It would not be much, but fear could lend a surprising amount of strength. She was down, yes, but not out.

A shadow emerged from behind one tree, then stepped fully into the clearing. There was just enough sunlight left for Maka to make out the person’s features, revealing the last person she expected. The branch fell from her grip as she gaped upwards.

“S -- Soul?” At least, she thought it was Soul. There was something very different about him, something not quite human, almost. His jaw was more pronounced, his teeth longer and sharper, his nails tapered to claws, his hair coarser and spreading to cover his… bare chest? Maka blinked a few times as her mouth went dry. Before she could tell them not to, her eyes darted down to catch that thankfully, he was wearing a pair of ripped trousers. Then she cursed herself for looking.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, to cover up her embarrassment. “And why aren’t you dressed?”

He looked down, noticing his state of undress for the first time. “I -- shit. Um. I got attacked?”

It would have sounded much more convincing if he hadn’t phrased it as a question. “Don’t lie to me, Soul, I’m not in the mood. What is going on?” Her voice broke on the question.

He looked at her again, closer this time. She could pinpoint the exact moment he saw the feathers, because his eyes grew wide and he stiffened, the hair -- fur? --  on his shoulders bristling with agitation. “Shit,” he repeated. “Shit. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” His mouth twisted, and Maka wondered if he might be sick.

“You -- you know what’s happening to me?”

Soul knelt down to look her in the eyes, but didn’t come any closer. “You’ve been cursed, like I have. I don’t know how, or why--” His voice faltered a little, and he cleared his throat, “but I believe it’s similar to mine. Can I help?”

It seemed absurd, but there wasn’t much room to argue when she was sprouting feathers. And there was no denying the wolfishness in his features or in his posture. A curse was the best explanation she was likely to get -- at least there was an explanation.

The question was: was she going to let him help? The answer came surprisingly quickly. Yes, yes, she wanted his help. She needed his help. There was a part of her that hated him seeing her like this, but it was drowned out by the panic and confusion. The answers had fallen practically into her lap, and she’d be a fool not to seize them.

She nodded, and he gave her a small, reassuring smile. “Good. Now, when did you first start to change?”

“I was collecting laundry not long ago when the wind caught one of the sheets. I chased after it, and then I felt a strange sensation throughout my body, and…” She trailed off.

“Then you began to change,” Soul finished. “It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but it’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“And then it stopped, leaving you halfway human and halfway animal.”

“Am I going to be like this forever?”

Soul shook his head. “Only for an hour. You’ll start to change every night when the sun goes down, but you’ll stay in limbo -- that’s what I call it -- until twilight ends and night begins. And then the next morning, you start to shift back, staying in limbo until the sun fully rises.”

“Is that how it works for you?”

“I’m the opposite. I shift to animal during the day, then to human at night.”

Maka’s head felt like it was spinning. “How did this happen to me? I’ve always been kind -- well, most of the time, and if I’m not then it means someone deserved it, but nothing’s happened recently!”

She couldn’t quite read Soul’s expression as he looked at her. “I don’t know why, Maka, but I promise, I’ll do everything I can to help break your curse.”

She nodded, and even though she had a million question, even though she didn’t really know this man who suffered the same affliction, the relief she felt was overwhelming. “And I swear, I’ll try to help break yours.”

He didn’t look like he quite believed her, and so Maka Albarn made up her mind that she would break his curse, even if she had to drag him kicking and screaming.  

 

* * *

 

There was the barest hint of a sunrise when Soul finally packed up his lyre and left the inn. A whole night of entertainment and music, and he only managed to fill a small pouch with coin. It lightly clinked against his belt loop, a sorry sound considering the amount of effort. Travelling, playing music, and telling stories wasn’t a lucrative life, but Soul spent money on naught but new clothing and food. He had no estate to invest in, no family to provide for. He was tied to nothing but his wanderlust, followed by nothing but his indefatigable curse.

 The wild branches and knotted tree trunks of the forest were grim and ominous in the dark, but as the sky shifted from a deep blue to a purple and light penetrated its thick canopy, it looked almost beautiful.

 It was nearly dawn. He didn’t have much time.

 As he followed the path to his secret stump, Soul began to hear a strange screeching sound beyond the bush along with erratic fluttering. Curious, he strayed from the trail and followed the source of the sound.

 A golden brown barn owl was hopping around on the ground, furiously flapping its wings and squawking when it failed to take flight. Soul had always thought owls only made dignified hooting noises, but this was clearly not the case. The ungodly, offkey screeches coming out of that bird’s throat were shattering the calm Soul typically enjoyed while strolling the forest at night.

A few feet away from the owl was a crumpled pile of clothing. When Soul saw that it was a green barmaid’s dress, he sighed.

“Maka?” he ventured. “Is that you?” He got his answer when the bird turned its pale, heart-shaped face towards him, revealing its unnaturally bright green eyes. She advanced towards him and released another terrible shriek. “Maka, you can’t talk as an owl, remember?” Soul said. “Calm down, it’s alright. And please, please be quiet.”

Though her feathers remained distinctly ruffled and she kept shifting her weight between her feet, Maka finally quieted. Content that she would no longer screech, Soul collected her clothes and draped them over his arm. “Come on,” he said quietly. “I’ll show you where you can put this for safe keeping.” She hopped after him.

Her constant fluttering and occasional cluck was annoying, but Soul’s heart couldn’t help but go out to the poor girl. Her transformations were still so new to her that she hadn’t even mastered her new form’s ability to fly. He could remember all too well the fright and stress of transforming into a beast against his will, slowly feeling his human limbs and senses melt away from him while he cowered in an unfamiliar body.

With time, Soul grew to love his wolf’s skin as much as his human one, to appreciate his sharpened animal senses just as much as his thumbs. For Maka, it was still new and jarring. She needed someone to show her the ropes, to help her to cope with the new reality that would eclipse everything that had come before it. 

The curse was terrible to face alone, but Soul at least knew what he was getting into. Maka was an innocent. Somehow, his family’s mistake had claimed another victim, a girl he barely knew but had always watched when their paths crossed after sundown. Was looking at a pretty girl a crime now? Did he do something wrong by entertaining fantasies he had never planned to act upon? He supposed it didn’t matter, like it or not she was doomed to never see another moon with human eyes.  

They arrived at clearing that contained a ring of mushrooms and, at the very center, a scraggly skeleton of a once-great oak. Soul had established many hiding places since leaving his childhood home, but this was definitely his favorite yet.

Inside the stump was everything he owned in the world--a gold watch with a picture of his mother, some shoes and clothes, a coinpurse, and his lyre. Perhaps it was a bad thing that his life was so easily condensed into a few mundane objects. Soul briefly wondered what small relics Maka would add to the pile.

“If you need to stash your things before you transform, you can use my hiding place,” Soul said, stuffing her green dress inside. “But don’t try to take anything that doesn’t belong to you. I’ll have you know that I have a very good sense of smell, and I’ll hunt you down if I have to.” Maka responded with a noise that almost sounded sarcastic. Soul didn’t appreciate the sass.

Without speaking, Soul slipped off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, eliciting another squawk from Maka. He ignored her and continued to undress to the sound of Maka stamping her feet and flapping her wings, and when he finally dropped his undergarments, the owl leapt so high in the air that she was almost airborne. 

Sheepish, Soul said, “Sorry, I forgot. If it upsets you, don’t look.” He sat down and leaned against the stump that held all of his worldly possessions. Dim sunlight trickled through the forest canopy, and as its warmth massaged his unshaven cheek, the hairs on Soul’s arms and legs began to thicken. “It won’t matter for much longer anyways.”

Experienced as he was, the shift between man and beast was always monstrous. Soul’s joints cracked as muscles shifted, and entirely new bones began to grow out of nothing underneath his ever-tightening skin. The skull shifts were the most uncomfortable. Soul’s nose and mouth jutted outward to form half a snout, and his teeth sharpened into lethal weapons.

Beside him, Maka had grown to twice the size of a normal owl. Her wings looked bent and broken as she writhed and trembled on the forest floor.

“Maka, don’t fight it and don’t force it,” Soul said. His voice had already adopted a low, feral growl, and his hands slowly developed into claws. “Just sit and relax your muscles, let the magic run its course.” She stilled, and Maka’s form began to smoothly shift.

After several uncomfortable minutes of sprouting fur and readjusting his skeleton, Soul entered his favorite stage of the transformation--limbo. It was the only time he could truly see the vibrant colors of dawn before he traded his human eyes for wolf ones, which were better at tracking movement and seeing in the dark than they were at picking up the subtle hues of morning.

He looked over at Maka, who had also entered her own limbo. They sat in silence for a while. It appeared that Maka wanted to take her transformation more slowly so she could memorize every shift. Not a week had passed since her transformations had begun, so Soul couldn’t begrudge her for wanting to acclimate on her own

“So, how are things?” he said eventually. Her eyes, still unnaturally large and predatory, fixated on Soul’s face. “Still getting a handle on flying?”

Maka made a noise that fell somewhere between a snort and a caw. “You saw it for yourself. I’m awful.”

“You’re still new,” he reminded her. “I could barely walk or run when it first started happening to me.”

“When did it first start happening to you?” Maka questioned. Her unblinking scrutiny carried an air of innocent curiosity, but it chilled him. “Is there a way to stop or control the transformations? How come--”

“It doesn’t matter.” Soul responded testily. “You should put something on.”

She was sitting in a pile of molted feathers, as naked as the day she first entered this world. While her face and feet still contained a trace of her avian form, her body was soft and human again. Soul assumed her hair was once again gold and her skin porcelain white, but his eyesight no longer saw more than dull shades of grey. When she became aware of her near-human nakedness, Maka’s dark-grey flush spread down her cheeks and neck. She crossed her arms across her chest and scrambled to the tree stump.

“You absolute scoundrel,” Maka hissed as she tugged her dress out of its hiding place. “You have no concept of decency or respect. It’s a disgrace.”

“You are going to rip up all of your clothes if you aren’t careful with those,” Soul said, nodding towards her still-taloned feet. “How much shit will you be in when you return home half-dressed? I’m already a disgrace. You can still be salvaged.”

Maka huffed and did not argue anymore. As she quietly threaded her clawed feet through her skirt, Soul laid on his side. It was easier to complete the final leg of his transformation laying down. When his spine realigned and his limbs quit growing fur like a goddamned rash, he released a low growl. As much as he enjoyed bickering with Maka, he couldn’t now even if he tried.

Fully clothed, Maka bent over and scratched Soul behind his ear. She was so tall to him now. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s comforting to have you--someone else like me I mean--around. I’ll be back here this evening.”

Soul whined and leaned into her hand. No one had ever touched him like this, and when she finally released him and stood up to her full height, he immediately missed the contact. With one last thankful smile, Maka retreated through the woods, towards family and home.

Since he essentially stayed up every night, it was traditional for Soul to start each day by taking a much-needed nap. This morning, stretched out on the mossy ground, Soul’s mind raced too quickly to rest.

His plans to move on would wait. Soul couldn’t abandon Maka when she was still adjusting.

She needed him, and even though he did not fully comprehend it, he needed her too.

* * *

 

Almost there… just a little closer… closer…

Snap.

Maka gave a hoot of indignation as the small rodent scurried away, darting out of sight faster than she could blink. Not for the first time, she considered giving up entirely. She spent half the day as a human, surely that would be enough for sustenance. But then her stomach cramped again, and she clucked unhappily.

You’ll have to surrender parts of yourself. Soul’s words echoed in her head. It’s not going to be easy, and you won’t like it, but this is who you are now. Sometimes the animal has to take control.

Well, that was easy for him to say. He’d been transforming for years; it had to be second nature for him by now. So who was he to pretend that it would be so easy? Maka couldn’t exactly scowl in her current form, but her feathers rustled in irritation. He always seemed to bring out that side to her, even when he wasn’t present.

Still, it wasn’t like she had many other options. Giving up control was the only way she was going to fill her empty belly, even if she hated every single second of it.

Maka did her best to clear her mind, stilling all the frantic thoughts tied to her human life. The inn, her father, her duties -- none of that mattered now. For the first time in her life, her only focus was survival.

She let each worry and care dissolve, carried away on the wind. The more primal instincts that came to life every evening too their place in the forefront of her mind, and with it came a wealth of new senses and information.

Suddenly Maka could hear every little shift in the undergrowth, every little change in the air. When she opened her eyes the world in front of her was still as sharp as before, but now she could pick out the details she had missed and use them to fill her hunger.

Twin pinpricks of light emerged from between two leaves in a nearby bush, revealing another chance at dinner. A racing heartbeat filled the air. The small part of Maka’s human mind that remained began to second-guess her abilities, but she gave it no mind. There was no room for doubt here. She could do it.

The mouse paused, but before it could sense her presence and scurry away like its friend before, Maka pounced. She still hadn’t quite mastered flight -- but she would soon, she knew now -- and yet it didn’t matter. Gliding forward to coast in the air, she extended razor-sharp talons and closed them neatly around the mouse’s throat. It spasmed in her grasp, then with a final twitch, its racing heartbeat ceased.

Maka stared down at the small body. A surge of satisfaction raced through her, and her feathers ruffled with joy. She’d done it! She’d caught her very first meal as an owl, all on her own.

Well, not entirely, an annoying voice in the back of her mind said. Soul helped, remember?

Who was it that caught the mouse, though? she reminded herself. Not Soul. But she couldn’t deny that his words had been invaluable. Not that she would ever tell him that to his face.

“Maka? Are you out here?”

Speak of the devil…

Maka rolled her eyes as she listened to him crash through the forest. He knew very well that she couldn’t speak when she was in owl form. Calling out for her was essentially useless. What was he expecting her to do, hoot at him?

Because he’d definitely know it was me and not one of the hundred other owls living in here. Honestly.

Still, she’d stuck close to the clearing, so it wouldn’t be too hard for him to find her. Judging by the sound of his footprints, he was already close by. Maka remembered the mouse still in her claws and would have smiled if she’d been able to. Finally, she had some progress to show him. Now he wouldn’t be able to tease her. About this, at least.

She reached down and took the mouse in her beak. Strangely, she wasn’t at all disgusted or put off by it at all. Though she suspected she might feel differently in the morning.

The crashing ceased as Soul stopped behind her. “Ah, Maka, there you are. When you learn to fly, it’ll be much harder to find you. After all, you’re -- what the hell?!”

Maka turned her head as he began talking… and it kept on turning. She forgot how flexible her new joints were, especially around her neck. Without moving her body, she swiveled her head around entirely to face Soul, feeling much too pleased when his eyes bugged out of his head.

“Oh no, please don’t do that, that’s just unnatural--”

Maka’s improved vision caught the sickly shade of green his face turned. Oh, she was going to have quite a lot of fun with this information. Curious as to how far her joints could go, she tried twisted her head to the side. To her delight, she could go almost entirely upside down.

“Now you’re just trying to be clever, but it’s not funny. It’s disturbing is what it is… could you stop it?!”

Righting herself, she dropped the mouse and hooted with laughter, her entire body shaking from the force. Soul selt his lantern down and sat down petulantly, his eyes narrowed. “This isn’t funny, Maka. Stop that.”

Oh, how Maka wished she had her voice. There was nothing she wanted to do more than to tease him mercilessly, and yet all she could do was hoot and give him pointed looks. Well, Maka could work with that. She puffed herself up and tried to look as pleased as she could.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself. Is that all you’ve been doing, coming up with ways to scar your only partner in this?”

Maka huffed. Is that how he thought she spent her time? Not everyone was as lazy as he. She scooped up the mouse and blinked at him.

“Oh, how lucky, you found yourself a dead mouse.” Before she could swell in indignation, he laughed and held out a hand. “I’m only joking. Seriously, Maka, well done. I knew you’d be fine, didn’t I?”

Well, he hadn’t exactly said as much, but… he had been rather helpful. When he wasn’t being so infuriating. Before she could do anything else, however, her stomach cramped again. This time, it was too much to resist. Without thinking too much about it, Maka threw her head back and gulped the mouse down whole. It seemed that her animal instincts were starting to coexist nicely with her human mind. Perhaps balancing the two would not be so difficult after all.

And with Soul by her side, sharing his knowledge, she was confident that together they could both master and break her curse.

“...You know, I don’t think I can ever watch you eat a bowl of stew the same way again.”

Maka screeched and leapt for him, talons extended. After all, there was nothing to say that Soul couldn’t help her if he had a few flesh wounds.

 

* * *

 

Soul’s days as a lone wolf were not as carefree and exhilarating as they used to be.

When dawn approached and the inn grew quiet, Soul would arrive at his stump and find an owlish Maka waiting for him there. After spending a precious moments talking through the transition from night to day, the two friends would usually part ways when Soul dashed into the woods like a beast unleashed. The first few hours of daylight were spent rollicking through the forest, hunting for rabbits and squirrels, and swimming through the river. Around midday he would sleep soundly on a shady patch by the riverbed. By the time he awoke, Soul would hardly have an hour to lose before dusk fell.

Soul used to revel during the daylight hours, yet now they felt incredibly empty, as if there was somewhere else he was supposed to be. Or someone else he was supposed to be with.

Thoughts like that were another problem he was having. Soul had been so accustomed to spending every waking hour on his own that he had forgotten how wonderful it was to become close to another person, to laugh until his sides hurt, to confide in another the challenges of the curse without feeling like a freak. But this newfound companionship with Maka had only opened an even larger floodgate, one where he yearned that their relationship was more tender, more affectionate, more wild. He even began to actually prefer those painful hours of limbo because it meant he could be with her even for a few precious moments.

Soul was almost glad Maka was cursed.

One morning after Maka had finally gotten dressed and ready to return back to human life, a very inhuman Soul sauntered behind her. She noticed him following immediately, but rather than question his motives or shoo him away, she simply put her hands behind her back and moved forward with a bemused smile. They walked together all the way to the winding path that lead to Albarn Inn before she finally turned to her companion.

“What?” Maka asked the wolf with a hand on her hip. “You want to go into the inn with me? Like my little pet?” He growled unpleasantly at that. “Well, if you want to follow me inside, you’re going to have to act a little more civilized.”  

To prove that it was possible for him to be more than a wild beast, Soul wagged his tail and let his tongue dangle out the side of his mouth. This made her laugh, a delicate, bell-like sound that contrasted her steel and unyielding personality. He wagged his tail even harder.

Maka strode over to the inn door, and after glancing to her right and left, she held it open. Soul trotted inside, his sharp nails clacking against the wooden floors. Almost immediately he was barraged with an array of intriguing scents, and the wolf sniffed the floor curiously. Soul had never noticed how nice it smelled as a human. He had also never been tempted to sweep the place for scraps of food on the floor, but he was all about trying new things...

The foundations of the inn was shaken by a sharp scream. Soul immediately knocked over several chairs and scrambled under a table to shield his ears as best he could from the sound. This time, the shrill noises that could wake the dead were not coming from Maka, but from her friend Tsubaki. The barmaid was staring and pointing at his snarling form.

“Maka!” Tsubaki said with a hand clutching her chest. “Look out, there’s a wild animal over there!”

“I know,” Maka said savvily. “I brought it in. It’s my wild animal.” From underneath his table, Soul saw Maka’s skirt brush against the floor as she moved towards him. “Come here, Eater. You’ve been a bad boy, scaring Tsubaki like that.”

Soul slowly emerged from underneath the growl, not bothering to hide his defiant growl. Even so, he grumpily obeyed his new mistress. Tsubaki eyed him warily from the other side of the room. “Good dog,” Maka said, business-like. “Now get behind the counter before you scare away any customers.”

Tail drooped between his hind legs, Soul followed his mistress behind the inn counter. It was there that he remained during the breakfast rush around midmorning, when the inn residents finally rose for the day.

Because of his stint as the local bard, Soul already knew he didn’t enjoy the clientele of Albarn House, but he began to like them a lot less now that he saw what they got up to during the day. This inn was apparently a hotbed for wandering drunkards, leches, and conmen, all of which felt that they needed to be waited upon hand and foot when they awoke in stupor. And the person charged with taking care of these stumbling oafs happened to be Maka.

“Woman!” called one guest with a dirt smattered face. “Get some mead over here.”

Maka wrinkled her nose, clearly upset about being addressed that way. “We don’t serve mead this early in the day,” she said in a tone of finality. She dropped off a small basket of sliced bread on the man’s table without sparing so much as a glance in his direction.

Before she could get away, the man grabbed her by the hand and responded with a rattled chuckle. “Come on girl, smile a bit. You’d look prettier.” Maka, somehow, remained businesslike and detached as she snatched her hand away and wiped it off on her apron.

It took all of Soul’s restraint to remain crouched behind the counter. Watching this smarmy customer take her hand sent Soul’s thoughts careening into bestial territory, which roughly translated into less thinking and more throat-tearing. He had to keep himself under control. Maka needed no help dealing with these men, for she was more experienced with managing the capricious wants of men than Soul would ever be. Even so, the sight of someone so unworthy and crude touching Maka caused Soul’s rib cage to burn with angry fire.

Soul realized with a morose pang that he didn’t know what Maka’s skin felt like, and he probably never would. When they were caught in their transition between beast and man, night and day, she was mostly covered with feathers and he with coarse fur. By the time she was once again in human skin, his paws and claws made it impossible to feel its texture or softness. What would it feel like to hold her hand in his own? To graze her palm with his thumb before bringing it to his lips for a less than chaste kiss?

Of course, his upbringing taught him that kissing of any kind, even on the hand, was incredibly presumptuous and out of line. Beast or no, he would never do such a thing. Soul had left behind his family and all the social graces that came with it long ago, but he still had more honor that this repugnant fool. Still, the unfairness of it all, the injustice that disgusting layabout had the ability to touch Maka while Soul was stuck being her pet, made Soul want to howl.  

Behind the counter, Soul lay for a while curled at Maka’s feet, whining faintly as he enjoyed her warmth.

 

* * *

 

Maka bit back a frustrated shriek as she ran her hands across the ripped seam for what had to be the hundredth time. It had been weeks since her transformations had begun and yet here she was, still ripping her dresses as though it had been only days. She knew when she would start changing, knew when she had to disrobe lest she destroy yet another dress, and yet there she sat, cradling ripped fabric and torn threads in her lap. The green embroidery on the bodice, though still intact, reminded her of what the dress meant, forcing her to swallow hard and turn it face down.

“Maka? Are you alright?” Soul ducked underneath a branch and crossed the clearing, one eyebrow raised. “I thought I heard something.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, shifting the fabric higher to cover her chest. “I’m fine.”

Soul snorted. “That’s a lie if I ever heard one. What’s wrong?”

Maka was going to lie again, but the look on his face changed her mind. “It’s this dress. I’ve ripped it, and it’s just… it was very special to me. And I’ve ruined it because I lost track of time.” She shook her head in disgust. “How can I break a curse if I can’t even manage it properly?”

“I think that’s a bit of an overreaction,” Soul said. “And I’ve seen you mend before. Can’t you just mend this one too?”

“It won’t be the same,” Maka said bitterly. “My mother gave me this dress. It’s my favorite.”

Thankfully, Soul didn’t try to argue the point any further. “I’m sorry. I can get you another dress from your room.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, listening to his footsteps as he left the forest. Carefully she lay the dress out in front of her again, inspecting each and every popped stitch. The damage wasn’t extensive, but she would never be able to wear it again without replacing a few of the seams. She could do it, yes, but every stitch she sewed, every knot she tied -- she’d only see her mother’s face in every one. Maka wasn’t sure she could handle it.

Soul returned shortly with a cloth bag he placed in the knothole, and they spent the rest of the dusk hour in silence. Maka ventured out on her own after her transformation was complete, hoping that the hunting and isolation would help to clear her head.

She returned right before dawn, and was surprised to find Soul still sitting where she’d left him. He was hunched over something, a string of curses issuing from his lips. Maka glided closer -- she’d finally mastered short flights -- and alighted on a tree branch nearby.

Her eyes widened as she caught sight of what was in his lap. It was her dress, carefully folded, a half-mended seam between Soul’s fingers. His hands were much too large for the tiny needle and thread, yet he held them as though they were made of glass. Maka could hardly believe the sight -- Soul was mending her dress.

Silently she fluttered to the ground, landing just in front of him. When he didn’t look up, she hooted softly at him. He jumped, stabbing himself in the finger. “Shit! Ah, uh, Maka. I didn’t think you would be back this soon.” He looked down at the dress in his lap, one hand tightening as though he might try to hide it. A moment later he relaxed, nursing his injured finger as he regarded her. “I know I should have asked. ‘M sorry. Just… seemed like it meant a lot to you. And I didn’t want to hear you whine about it all the time.” The last he said defensively, but Maka was in no mood to attack him. She was still reeling over the fact that he’d done this for her.

Here she was, thinking that he cared no more for her than as a responsibility, someone he was obligated to help. But this… there had been no reason for him to mend her dress. He’d done it because it meant something to her, and suddenly Maka found herself completely reevaluating their relationship.

The first rays of sun broke over the horizon, and Maka was soon distracted by the thickening of her bones and the shriveling of her feathers. When at last she reached limbo, she curled her arms around herself and ducked her head. “I’m not angry, Soul,” she said quietly. “Just… surprised. Thank you for doing this.”

“I know you said it wouldn’t be the same--”

She cut him off. “That’s all right,” she said, her voice a little stronger. She didn’t say what came to her mind next.

No, it’s not the same. It’s different now, but that isn’t always a bad thing.

 

* * *

 

On a cool summer night, Soul left the inn early at the sound of distant thunder. There were hardly any patrons to serenade and no coin to be earned, so he didn’t see the point in wasting his time or voice on people he neither cared for nor liked. The ominous weather provided a good opportunity for him to spend his nightly hours with someone who actually would appreciate his talents, someone who was probably going stir crazy trying to entertain herself in the forest alone. 

He found her hocing up an owl pellet. Maka became very distressed when she noticed his presence, so her coughing became relatively quiet as she finally expelled the pellet from her tiny body. Soul didn’t know what she was so embarrassed about, considering that she caught him with his leg in the air on plenty of occasions. This was even a good thing; it meant that she had caught and eaten something recently, which Soul often worried about when he was stuck playing music at the inn.

Since he had been wearing his thick leather coat, Maka happily flew to his shoulder and perched upon it. He felt her lightly preen his long hair with her break. Fussy woman.

The sky opened up, and rain steadily trickled through the rustling leaves. Soul hurried to an abandoned stable on the outskirts of town. He had slept there plenty of times as a wolf, and he knew for a fact that it wouldn’t fail him now. Once they were finally inside, a loud clap of thunder crashed above them, and the rain began to pour more earnestly.

“Don’t think I’ll be heading out again tonight,” Soul muttered. “Guess I’ll just hang out with you, eh birdbrain? So, what do you want? A story? A song? Jokes?” She cocked her head and blinked. “Story, huh? Let me think.”

Once Maka saw fit to dismount his shoulder, Soul sat against the wall and scratched his face, deep in thought. Soul knew a lot of ballads, love poems, and epic myths, but he had told those ad nauseum to everyone at the inn. Maka wasn’t just some patron to entertain. She was closest thing to sunlight he had experienced in almost a decade, and she was the only love he had ever known. The futility of his feelings had done nothing to dull their intensity. There were so many things Soul wanted for her, so many trivial fantasies he wanted for both of them, but at the end of the day the only thing he had to offer his friend was a story.

And there was only one story inscribed on Soul’s bones, one tale that he had never told anyone else.

“Okay, I have one,” he said softly. Maka focused on his face with that intrigued, wide-eyed look of hers. “It’s entirely true, but I’m warning you now, you’re not gonna like it.”

“Many decades ago, there was a nobleman’s daughter. She was incredibly beautiful; flaxen hair, eyes like a storm, lily white skin, yadda yadda yad--Ouch!” Maka had given him a sharp peck to the knee. “Okay, I’ll tell it with a little more artistic flourish. Sheesh. Anyways, her family was wealthy and distantly connected to royalty, so she was betrothed to another blue-blood when she was very young.

When she was seventeen she fell in love with someone else, a traveling minstrel and storyteller who visited her estate. He was a free spirit, flighty, bound to no town and no family. The storyteller wasn’t entertaining her family long before he fell hopelessly in love with her too.

The two lovers were clearly devoted to each other, but they had never admitted their love aloud. They were terrified of their passions, she because it would mean turning her back on her security, and he because it would mean giving up his freedom.

Frustrated by this impasse, the nobleman’s daughter confided their problem to a witch named Blair. She trusted that Blair would know how to convince the storyteller to stay at the estate, or perhaps how to convince her parents to not disown her the moment her romance was discovered.”  

Soul paused. “This was her mistake,” he said, letting the weighty meaning of his words hang in the air. “Blair is--was--never to be trusted.”

“The witch cast a curse on the lovers, which revealed itself to them at dawn. When the sun rose, he would transform into a great bird. When the sun fell, she would transform into a predator. No matter how they tried, the lovers were never able to see each other as humans ever again. Rather than bringing them together, Blair’s curse had separated them for good.

The nobleman’s daughter and her family hid her curse well. She married her fiance, and the storyteller flew away from the estate, never to return or see his love again.”

Soul exhaled, slightly winded from telling his long story. He felt a light peck on his sleeve, and saw Maka watching him expectantly. “There’s no more,” he said with a shrug. “That’s the end. They die alone.” With an unhappy cluck, she tugged on his sleeve once more. “I’m serious,” he repeated. “That’s the end of the story. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

The owl stared at him another moment before she started shaking. Every part of her, from the tips of her wings to her tail feathers, began to rustle and convulse, and Maka threw her head back and released the most earsplitting, angry shriek. Soul immediately covered his ears. He knew that Maka reacted strongly to things she disliked, but he had never expected her to receive his story with so much raw and violent emotion.

“Shut up!” he said, straining to be heard. “I told you that you would hate it.” She started to wildly flap her wings and stomp her feet as she cried out in anguish and fury.

Unable to take anymore, Soul jumped to his feet. “Look, I’m sorry!” He was yelling now, partly to hear himself over Maka’s furious screeching and partly to express his own simmering rage. “True stories just don’t get happy endings! Know why? Because the world isn’t fair, it never has been, and it’s never going to change! We’re stuck like this forever!”

Once the words were out, it was Soul who was blindsided by hurt and anguish. He had known all along that his love was impossible, but it had never before felt so real and hopeless.

This was Soul’s story before he was even born, given to him by his mother and to her by a witch without a cause. He had already gone to Blair and begged for forgiveness for his mother’s crime, whatever that was. He had already traveled far and wide to find a cure. Soul would languish his entire life, just like his mother, with love at an arm’s length. The reality of it, the wrenching loneliness that he now saw ahead him, was too much to bear.

He sat for a while with his face in his hands, breathing deeply to calm his trembling shoulders. “Maybe that wasn’t the complete end of the story,” he offered. “But it’s still not the ending you want it to be.”

“The nobleman’s daughter--I guess at this point she is her own noblewoman now--the curse didn't die with her. It passed on to her favorite son, extending the witch’s punishment beyond death. I--he--it was hard to cope with, all alone. He tried though. He wanted to find the witch who cursed him the first place, find a way to reverse it. But, after I did track the little bitch down, that’s when I find out there’s no cure. So now I--he--the guy--traveled the kingdom because if the curse is passed through family, it would go away when he died too.”    

He lightly traced Maka’s soft feathers with his fingers. “It’s my fault, don’t you see?” he said. “Blair did this to you to punish me. I’ve been too afraid to get close to anyone, and the moment I did she saddled you with the same curse. If I just kept to myself, if I just didn’t try to fly too close to the goddamn sun, then maybe--”

His words were cut off by searing pain. Maka sank her talon into Soul’s forearm, causing him to cry out and jerk his arm away. Her claws shredded his shirt sleeve as he pulled away, and a line of dark red bloomed onto the fabric. Wincing, Soul applied pressure to his throbbing arm.

The bleeding stopped quickly, and Soul leaned against the thin wall. Telling his story was the most exhausting thing he had ever accomplished. Maka had long hopped away, and stood perched in the stable rafters, ruffling her feathers with supreme agitation.

There was something changed in the air when Soul fell into a soft doze, and he jolted awake the moment sunlight splashed across his face. His bones had already begun to shift as he entered limbo. With a exploratory sniff, Soul lifted his head off the wood and rolled to the side, looking for his companion. What he saw caused his jaw to slacken.

The light filtering through the cracks in the wood ceiling set Maka’s hair ablaze with a luster so warm and brilliant that each strand looked like golden thread spun inside the sun itself. She was leaning against the wall too, half undressed and transformed. Her eyes were always a vivid green, but caught as she was between a predatory owl and soft human, Maka’s eyes dazzled. In that moment, Maka was the most vibrant and heavenly creature Soul had ever seen.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” Maka blurted. Soul, overwhelmed at the sight of someone so radiant, stared at her uncomprehending. “I bandaged it while you were asleep. Once I had fingers again.” Maka flexed her hands, which sported small wiggling nubs. Soul sleepily inspected his arm, which had some torn fabric from her dress tied around his increasingly canine arm. “It was my fault for getting so carried away,” Maka babbled. “It’s just--I couldn’t just sit there and let you say all these terrible things about yourself. I just couldn’t. It was still wrong of me to hurt you.”

There was a heavy sinking in Soul’s stomach. She had given him a minor maiming, yet Maka still proved to be so lovely it hurt. “I’m fine,” Soul lied.

Those damn wolf’s eyes of his took over Soul’s sight, and the wonderful radiance that was Maka dulled until only the barest colors were left behind.

 

* * *

 

Maka was already in limbo by the time Soul padded into the clearing the next morning, looking more than a little skittish. Spilling his life story to her the night before must have put him on edge, as he took a seat farther away from her than he usually did. She almost wanted to roll her eyes. As though a traumatic past would drive her away. Honestly, did Soul have so little faith in her? Though, to be fair, the way she was wringing her hands and biting her lip probably wasn’t making him feel any more at ease.

“Have a good night?” he finally asked, breaking the tense silence.

“As good as it can get,” she replied, shrugging. “I spent most of it thinking.”

“Oh? About what?”

“The story you told me.” She saw Soul tense out of the corner of her eye, but barrelled on anyway. “I know it can’t have been easy, and I wanted to thank you for sharing it. And I was thinking… I wanted to tell you about me. About me before you met me, I mean.” The words tripped out of her mouth unevenly.

Soul was quiet for a long time. “I didn’t tell you about all that to guilt you into sharing anything with me.”

“I know.”

Soul looked pointedly at her wringing hands. “Are you sure about that?”

“I want to tell you.”

“You don’t have to, Maka.”

“I do. Because… you’re important to me. And I want you to know.” She peeked up from underneath her eyelashes, half-expecting him to make some teasing remark. But the expression on his face was deadly serious, and the air took on a weightier quality than it had a few moments previously.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to.”

Something not entirely unpleasant squirmed in her chest as she looked into his eyes. The sensation wasn’t novel, exactly, but it always seemed to show up whenever Soul was around. Some part of her knew what it meant, and yet she kept that realization buried deep within. Opening that can of worms would add up to nothing but trouble, and besides, things between them were stable enough. Why ruin it with such flighty emotions?

But then Soul would look at her, or he’d say something, or his hand would just brush up against her elbow and everything was in turmoil again. It drove her mad, but at the same time, she kept wishing for him to look a little longer or to move a little closer. He was too much and not enough all at the same time, and she hated how much she loved it.

“We didn’t always have the inn,” she said, to distract herself from her runaway thoughts. “My father used to be a blacksmith. He’d make swords and weapons and sometimes tools, but he was also… easily distracted. He still is.” She made a face; Soul, wisely, did not comment. “My mother was a trader, always traveling from town to town. She’d bring me back trinkets from far away cities, tell me tales of distant lands. And I thought we were happy.”

Maka didn’t think she could look at Soul as she said the words, so she focused on a knot in the tree next to his shoulder. “Then I grew older, and I noticed the silences that always appeared when she returned. I noticed the way my father laughed too much when other women came by his shop, and how my mother would be gone for longer periods of time.”

She could still remember what came next, and even though it ached, there was a numbness to it that came from replaying it again and again. “One day, when my mother returned, she and my father fought. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I knew what it meant. The next day she left, and I had nothing but a note telling me that she was off to those far away places, and that she would send me notes when she could. But aside from the occasional scrap of news, I didn’t hear from her. She was gone.

“My father fell apart. We had to sell his business not long after, since he couldn’t work for all his breakdowns. I did the best I could, but there wasn’t much in the way of employment for me. Then one day, my father got it into his head that if he could prove to my mother that he was responsible, that my mother would change her mind and come back.” She shook her head. Even if her mother had miraculously managed to hear of her father’s new purchase, there was no changing his nature, no matter how hard he tried.

“He bought an inn using the last of our savings, leaving me to scramble about figuring out how exactly one runs one. That was three years ago, and I think I’ve done rather well in keeping it up. My mother has yet to come running back to my father, but between all the women he invites up to his rooms, I doubt he’s noticed.”

The silence in the clearing was oppressive, like a late August heat. Maka squirmed and picked at the grass beneath her, torn between catching Soul’s gaze and avoiding it.

“He’s lucky to have you. That inn of yours in certainly something.”

Maka’s cheeks colored. This was silly -- she knew she was capable and that the inn would fall apart without her. More than one person had told her that before. So why did it sound so different coming from Soul’s lips?

“Thank you,” she said. She scrambled for something else to say, but came up empty. It seemed that she’d used up all her words to bare her soul. What came next was entirely up to Soul.

“It looks like neither of us have had it easy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “And, well…” He looked at his hands, his cheeks flushing. “Of all the people that could have joined me in this curse… I’m glad it was you. That might be selfish of me.”

There he went again, convinced that he was entirely at fault for her predicament. Maka rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help the fond smile that crept across her face. “I’m so tired of telling you this, Soul, but it’s not your fault. I’m just happy that you were here to help. You’ve done so much for me. So I suppose that I can say the same. I’m glad it was you.”

Their gazes locked then, and for a moment Maka glimpsed something raw and honest in Soul’s eyes, something that she couldn’t place but could feel echoed deep in her gut.  Before she could identify it, though, it disappeared from view, quickly hidden behind his carefully constructed facade of guarded apathy. Soul was still hiding things from her, she thought bitterly, then felt a stab of guilt. That wasn’t entirely fair, was it? Not when Maka was avoiding the churning mess she buried whenever she saw him, the mess she was ever-so-careful not to name.

You know what it is. You’re just afraid.

Maybe she was. And maybe he was, too. As the sun fully rose above the horizon, brushing the feathers off Maka’s arms and painting white fur across Soul’s skin, Maka remembered an old saying her father had once told her: a bird may love a fish, but where would they live?

Or in this case, she thought, watching Soul disappear into the forest, an owl may love a wolf.

 

* * *

 

Many nights after Maka unloaded her life’s greatest struggles onto her friend, Soul found himself aimlessly toying with his lyre at the inn. Winter was imminent, and tips were few and far between. Soul wondered if there was any point to spending his whole night there plucking away for an audience that wouldn’t pay him.

With a small glance towards the window, Soul spotted a golden barn owl with unnatural green set of eyes perched outside.

It wasn’t long before he packed up his lyre, paid his respects to Tsubaki and the other barmaids, and escaped the inn. Maka swooped out of the darkness the moment Soul had cleared the tree line and perched herself on his shoulder. He felt a rush of pride; Maka used to be absolute terribly at flight, but her squawking chicken days were over. Maka had truly grown into a regal owl, a predator that was both fierce and graceful.

“Tonight Tsu served her summer pudding,” Soul said allowed as he walked. He couldn’t help but smirk when he heard a small cluck from Maka. “Jealous, aren’t you? Tsubaki gave me your portion, since you weren’t anywhere to be found. Pity.”

There was a light nip on his ear lobe. “Alright, I’ll stop talking about it! God almighty, women get so worked up over food. I don’t understand it.” The next nip was much more sharp and spiteful. “Okay! I’ll shut up! You happy?”

Soul continued walking down the forest path with only moonlight to guide him. Their tree stump was just beyond a layer of tall bushes whose unruly branches had long curled into each other. Maka took off to fly up and over the forest canopy, leaving Soul to brave the bushes alone. It wasn’t too difficult for Soul to swap the leaves and twigs away, being human and all.

“You drive me up the wall when you’re a bird,” Soul said to himself, raising his voice to be heard over the rustling of branches. “You find a way to talk back even when you can’t talk at all. What would I ever do without--”

When he cleared the foliage, Soul first noticed a trampled mushroom by his feet, and then he saw them--three strangers in dark overclothes were standing within the circle of mushrooms surrounding Soul and Maka’s special treestump. One man was rifling through the stump and pulling out the long fabric of Maka’s dress--the very same garment he had mended for her all those weeks ago. Another was clearly examining Soul’s pocket watch and attempting to pry out the portrait of his mother. The last one was loitering against a tree, fiddling with an arrow he had taken from his quiver.

Soul stood in shock for only a moment, blood running cold, before bellowing, “What are you doing?” The three men froze, caught. “THOSE ARE OURS!”

The man with Soul’s watch was the first to bolt, followed by the one with the knife. The long, billowing fabric of Maka’s dress snagged on the stump’s errant branch, ripping it anew. The thief dropped the dress and dashed into the darkness in the opposite direction as his friends.

Soul ran into the fairy circle and picked up the garment, now soiled and ruined for a second time, and felt its velvety fabric between his fingers. Their place had been violated, their possessions tampered with, but maybe the dress and all the memories that came with it could be mended still. Maybe…

The sound of Maka’s battle caw and a man’s yell somewhere within the forest spurred to Soul to throw the torn gown over his shoulder and sprint through the woods. While it was dark, Soul knew the forest better than any mere human. He threaded through the trees with unmatched agility, numb to branches and thorns scratching his skin and the growing ache in his chest. It was almost like being a wolf, the way Soul’s senses had sharpened and his body pumped with adrenaline and predatory instinct.

Bursting into another clearing, Soul finally saw them. Maka was flying around them, swooping toward the thief with Soul’s watch clutched in his hand with her talons out and drawing blood almost every time. The man feebly tried to bat her away while his comrade stood apart, calculating.

“Kill the damn thing before it scratches my eyes out!” one of them yelled.

“Stand still for two seconds and I will,” the other said, unsteadily raising his bow and arrow.

As Maka soared into the air for another pass, her target withdrew a knife. Soul shouted something that even he couldn’t interpret, his ears pounding with fear and outrage, and he rushed forward to tackle the thief to the ground and wrestle the knife from his hands. Soul’s watch, dented and smeared with dirt, fell open to the picture of his long dead mother in the grass. The thief with the arrows turned and ran.

Maka was nowhere to be seen when Soul straddled the thief he had seized and recognized the man immediately. He was a patron of the inn, the self-same one that gave Maka trouble during the day and Soul pitiful tips at night.

“What else did you take?” Soul demanded, clutching the man’s shirt. The sound of an owl’s constant shrieking blared behind him, but his tunnel vision continued to narrow and run red. “How long have you been following us?”

“I don’t know understand,” the man said weakly. “We found your camp on accident.”

“Bullshit!”

A high-pitched peal of agony pierced the forest. Soul looked away from his captive and towards the sky, where he watched Maka drop out of the air with an arrow thrust through her feathered breast. The accomplice with the arrows had ostensibly returned, and a feeling of unrestrained horror overtook all of Soul’s senses. He stood up and moved like a sleepwalker towards the owl. The thieves, sensing their opportunity to escape, left for good.

Maka was conscious when he rushed to her side, and she blinked at him with glazed eyes. The arrow had cut clean through her chest and stuck out her back like a disturbing extra limb. Hardly breathing, Soul brushed his fingers against the shaft of the arrow and recoiled when Maka cawed in protest. His eyes were wet. This couldn’t be happening. Not Maka, no, not on his watch.

Soul took Maka’s torn dress off his shoulder and gingerly wrapped it around her. Maka was so fragile that she shuddered at his touch. He lifted the owl and cradled his broken love in his arms, helpless to heal her wound or assuage her doubts.

He wandered through the forest, more desperate and frantic than he had ever been in his life. Maka would emit a half-hearted shriek from time to time, as if to tell him that she was still okay, but the increasingly dullness of her cries was the opposite of comforting. That evil, hateful arrow had stopped Maka’s bleeding, so Soul was unable to remove it from her chest cavity. It stood still, protruding from her small body as her breathing grew more shallow by the minute.

Soul looked toward the moon. It would be hours before the sun rose, hours before he had a hope of communicating with Maka in quasi-human form. Her chances of living through the night were slim to none, and it was likely that Soul would never see those clever eyes or hear that sharp voice ever again.

Just as Soul begged the stars themselves to send aid, he spotted her blazing yellow eyes in the darkness. Blair, the deceitful crone who started it all, had appeared to him for the first time in years in cat form. She languidly jumped down from the taller branch and sauntered toward him, her dark fur shining slightly purple in the moonlight. Soul curled Maka’s shivering body into his chest.

“What do you want?” Soul asked her. His voice was ragged. “I know you don’t ever show up for social visits.”

“I only appear to those who I can help,” Blair said.

Soul hesitated. “So you can heal her?”

Blair clicked her tongue. “Yes and no. I can help her only after you help yourself." 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he seethed. “You can’t just dangle her life in front of me like that, it’s not fair! We never did anything wrong!”

The cat say backwards on her haunches and looked thoughtful. “People come to me and ask for me to fix all of their problems,” Blair said. “But I never do that. I give them the power to fix their own lives. It isn’t my fault if they never figure out how. I’m just a simple feline, you know.”

“So was it my mother’s fault she died unhappy?” Soul questioned. “Is it going to be my fault if Maka dies? You’re the one who cursed us, why can’t you fix us too?” As he spoke, Blair sighed and got back to her feet. “I’ll do anything you want me to.” His throat felt so thick that he could hardly breath. “Please, please help us.”

Blair looked over her shoulder. “I never cursed you,” she said. “I merely gave you a gift that takes a long time to unwrap. Your mother never figured it out, but perhaps you will. I hope that you do. ”

With that last cryptic piece of advice, Blair dissolved into shadow. Soul swayed where he stood, unsure if Blair really had appeared to him or if he had completely hallucinated their interaction. In Blair’s place was a glimmering piece of golden metal. When Soul stooped to pick it up, he discovered that it was his lost watch. Before clicking the watch closed, Soul looked at his mother’s face, worn from a lifetime of disappointment and loneliness.

A small whimper from the delicate bird in his arms brought Soul back to his senses. Maka was hurting, she was dying, and he was just standing there feeling aghast and betrayed by a cat who had done nothing but hurt him before. It was stupid to hang his hopes on Blair’s intervention, but it was even more thoughtless for Soul to think his story could end happily. He was born in tragedy, he would end in tragedy.

Their shared stump was no longer hallowed ground, so Soul carried Maka back to the old stable where they took shelter on a rainy night. Perhaps here he could make Maka’s last moments comfortable.

He constructed a small bed out of hay and layed down with Maka still clutched to his chest. It comforted him to feel her steadily breathe, even if her breaths were disrupted by crackling wheezes. The sky shifted to a deep lavender. Morning was coming more aggressively than Soul originally thought; Maka’s torso had already begun to lengthen and her feathers to molt. Judging by the sudden spread of fur on his forearms, limbo had come early for Soul as well.

They laid together for a long time in silence, matching the uneven rhythm of their inhalations with their scared, frenzied heart beats. Rather than expiring as a true owl would, Maka continued to grow in his arms as the sun rose above the horizon. He tried to quench the ache in the deepest recesses his soul by pulling Maka as close to him as possible, so that their bodies could combine and they could be together at last.

“Maka,” Soul whispered, throat thick with longing and denial. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” Maka responded with a small caw, and he chuckled. “You’re dying, you’re a bird, and you still need to have the last word. You’re incredible.”

She was about three quarters of her regular size when her skull finally shed her feathers and sprouted long golden hair. Realizing that this was probably his first and last chance to get so close to the girl he had loved so long, Soul held Maka close and buried his face in her hair. He wanted to be with her until the very end.

“God, I’m so in love you,” he said softly. “It was doomed from the start, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not with you.”

A moment after he spoke those words, Maka stirred, sat up, and lifted her arm. It was still stuck between being a bird’s wing and a human limb, but somehow she gripped the arrow and began to pull it from her chest.

“Maka what are you doing?” Soul blurted in alarm. “Leave it alone, you’re just going to reopen the wound.”

Grunting, Maka continued to remove the arrow shaft from her chest. With every inch it moved, her body became more soft and human. Most astonishingly, no blood dripped or spurted from the wound as Maka did her work. Just as suddenly as she had begun to withdraw the arrow, Maka removed it with a swift flourish and tossed it aside. He watched with astonishment as the exit wound in her black glowed gold and slowly closed.

The first inklings of sunlight seeped into the stable, yet Maka was already fully human, . That was not how limbo worked. The shifting of Soul’s own bones had also halted.

Maka sat in front of him with her arms wrapped around her legs. Slowly, Soul reached out his completely human arm and touched her bare skin for the first time on her shoulder. He honestly believed that she would melt away the moment they made contact, a hollow dream left behind in his grief, and he was truly shocked when the smooth skin beneath his fingertips was real.

Maka stiffened at his touch and quickly turned around. They saw each other, nude and gloriously human, and Maka looked at Soul as if she had all the affection in the world trapped in her eyes. “Oh, Soul!”

Soul barely said her name before Maka lurched into him and kissed him on the mouth. They fell onto each other, skin to skin, and kissed until the sun shone high and triumphant.

They spent several days wandering the forest and the nearby town in human form before Soul felt an itch to hunt for rabbit and instinctively transformed back into a wolf. Their animals forms weren’t gone for good, just packed away until the lovers needed the agility and power of a beast.

Blair’s gift had indeed turned out to be a gift in disguise. By gathering the courage to embrace love and leave behind their fear of pain, they had accomplished what the lovers of the past had never done. And it was because of that that Soul and Maka, wolf and owl, lived happily ever after.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ChaoticLivi would being an awesome power and coming up with this story! I hope we did it justice.


End file.
